Escape from Anathema Mines

Ludum Dare - April 2005

Enhanced Edition - Download

During the week after the contest I fixed a multitude of small bugs, and added a multitude of small enhancements.
Please try it out:
pygame | windows.

Enhanced Edition - Changes

added 3 new levels -- varying from easy to hard, 8 levels total now

added 3 different dying effects -- see screenshots below

added level status in corner

improved sound effects

optimized painting

fixed level 5 (now level 7) is too hard

fixed path finding not optimal

fixed guards can shoot through walls

fixed wall texturizing not always right

fixed corners are not solid

fixed player doesn't walk straight

fixed player doesn't light up in guard's flashlight

fixed light casts through walls

Screenshots

Post-Mortem

This year I spent around 2 hours planning before I actually started
writing my game. I also bounced ideas around with some friends to come up
with a really good game concept. I believe spending this time
planning before actually creating really helped out in the fun factor this
year. Last year my fun score was fairly low.

I used pygame again this year to great success. It was easy to get
my game up and running and working quite nicely by the time the
contest came around. I also used my own level and tile editors, which helped
save a good deal of time. I also was able to use my MR-8 for recording sound effects, ModPlug and n-track for creating the music. I was quite pleased with
the quality of audio I was able to create in about 2 hours. I also utilized
friends to do play testing. This also helped in the fun factor, as I was
able to get some good feedback on what parts of the game were fun, what
levels were too hard, etc. I was also pleased to have enough time to
create 5 levels for the contest, giving my game a fairly complete feel.

For next time, I am interested in learning a 3-D kit so that I
can do fancier graphics. My game would have still been a 2-D game, but
with the added light effects, I think that would have helped my production.

The Good

Prep: I made sure all my tools were installed and working before the contest

Testing: Having lots of it. Game play came out good, and no critical bugs were in the contest edition.

Time: Managing time from most important features to least

The Bad

Tools: wish I had 3-D tool knowledge to do my lighting effects and hi-res graphics.

Testing and Time: wish I had more time to do more to weed out the last few non-critical bugs, but you can only do so much in 48 hours.

I enjoyed this year's contest even more than last years. I am really enjoying
trying out everyone's games, and I'm learning a lot on what I can do to
improve my game making skills.

Special Thanks

Lyn - for being my poster child, and some testing
Tim - for being my primary tester
Dan - for being my backup tester
richard - for hosting the contest
#ludumdare - I had a great time, special "hoo rahs" to those who
participated in the 2.5 hour mini "Road Trip" contest.